Grievances
by Experimental
Summary: He gave his son everything he could. So where did he go so wrong? (A loosely "Five Times/One Time" fic regarding Stéphane and Eduard Narcisse. Mostly pre-series.)
1. Losses

**A/n: **The following is a take on the "Five Times/One Time" genre, so expect four or five more parts of similar length. The theme, the times when Narcisse could have changed the direction Eduard was heading in (and didn't), and one time he couldn't. I guess. Feel free to interpret as thou wisheth. The title, inspired by Glaber, because I've also been catching up on _Spartacus_ and I can't deny who's been my muse this season.

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><p>Grievances<p>

I.

The day Eduard was born was the day he realized, this was what he had been made for. All his life had been leading up to this moment, everything he had done and made himself to be culminating in this single truth:

He had a son.

But the years flew by so quickly. And if he had known then how fleetingly happiness would appear in his life, he would have grabbed on to it as it passed. He would have wrestled it to the ground, and never let it go. He would have tried harder.

Within a single season he had lost them both. First Eduard's mother, fading away from him and their son while he watched, able to do nothing. Then his own father, to fever, and the cold.

"You have to talk to him, Stéphane," the old man said in the weeks before, when the cough that would kill him still seemed quite harmless.

"And tell him what? He's just a boy. What could he possibly know of death?"

"He deserves to know that he is loved. You do still love your son, do you not?"

But the love he had for Eduard was never the issue.

It was the love he should have had for the boy's mother that made him turn away in anger when he saw his son. She had been fair, too. She had stared at him with the same eyes, eyes that wondered why he kept his distance though he was so close by her side.

She had given him so much. She left him with so little.


	2. Lessons

II.

"It's too hard, Father, I can't do it!" Eduard pouted, and let the bow go slack.

And had it been so long ago that Stéphane had known his frustration? Perhaps he hadn't been quite so young, but he remembered aching muscles he hadn't known were there before. Able to think of nothing else but getting back out on the lawn with the targets, even though he could barely lift a half-full tea cup to his lips. To shoot just one more arrow before it grew too dark or too cold to stay out, then one more after that, always believing the next one would finally hit the bull's eye.

His satisfaction, so brief, when it finally happened.

He crouched down behind Eduard. "Try again. Nock your arrow like I showed you, then pull back—slowly. Elbows up!" he said, lifting them into place. Turning Eduard's hips, and then his head when it wanted to move with them, to face the target properly.

"Now. Line up the point of your arrow with that little notch in the bow right above the grip. That will tell you precisely where your arrow wants to go. Then, line them both up with your target."

Eduard's seven-year-old arms shook as he tried to hold the bow taut and steady, and corrected his aim.

"When you're confident you have everything where you want it, then release."

His small frame full of concentration, Eduard let his arrow fly. It fell short of its mark, and off-side, much to his audible frustration.

"Never you mind," Stéphane assured him. "You'll do better with each try. No one expects you to hit the target dead-on the first time you pick up a bow."

He took up his own bow from where he had rested it, nocked an arrow, and pulled back. The creak of the vambrace's leather against the bow's grip was to his ears like seeing a smile of recognition appear on the face of an old friend.

"Next time," he told Eduard over the fletching, "draw the string a little tighter. Back, as far as you can pull it. That will give your arrow the force it needs to travel further."

"But I'm not _strong_ enough!" the boy huffed.

"Then you must _make _yourself strong enough, Eduard."

"When can I join you on the hunt?"

Sighing, Stéphane lowered his aim. This was by now an old familiar argument, with an old familiar answer.

"When you show me you possess the proper discipline for it. When you've mastered patience and proven you can hit a target. Then, and only then, will I take you with me. Out in the wilds, Eduard, a missed shot can mean the difference between life and death. Or, at very least, between a successful hunt and failure. Your aim should be to kill quickly, cleanly, with a single shot. Two, if absolutely necessary. You do not want to merely maim your quarry, and leave it to die a slow and painful death. A wounded animal can still hurt you if you get too close—or run off and make all your efforts have been for naught.

"So, if you truly wish to call yourself a hunter," he said as he raised his aim again, "you must _earn_ the right. Respect your quarry's strengths as well as its weaknesses, and strive to overcome them always. To be quicker than the boar. Quieter than the hart. More clever than the fox. Stronger—"

He released, and his arrow flew true to the center of its target.

"Than your own bow."

The look of envy on Eduard's face when he saw that bolt sink home was one Stéphane knew all too well.

"So," Eduard began uncertainly, "my bow is my enemy?"

"Hardly. Your bow is your greatest ally, Eduard. But you must master it as well so that it comes to feel like an extension of yourself. As natural to you as . . . well, as your own arm."

Turning that over in his mind, Eduard picked up another arrow. "I think I should like to kill a fox," he said.

And when he missed his target this time—though by less distance—he was careful not to fuss over it. He was learning.


	3. Lies

III.

Eduard certainly seemed to be enjoying his new spring raiments. Not even Easter and he was wearing them out of doors for all to see. "Strutting about like a cockerel who's just discovered his tail feathers."

"Saith the gentleman wearing a peacock's plumage on his doublet."

Stéphane grinned, even if it was at his own expense. "I suppose I deserve that," he said to his old squire, turning away from the office windows. "Unfortunately, ever since his return from Italy, Eduard has been insisting upon ever more ridiculous codpieces."

"Ah, the folly of youth. They believe themselves to be paragons of good taste, when to the rest of the world it appears as though they're merely compensating for some, er, personal lack."

"Then I can only hope compensation will be a short-lived fashion in this household," Stéphane said as a page handed him the day's correspondence, "as it is becoming quite an expensive one."

A brief leafing through the letters uncovered names that brought a different sort of smile to his lips, recalling fondly some new connections he had made during his last visit it court. As well as the pleasures he had enjoyed with said connections. . . .

Recognizing that look he knew so well, the former squire excused himself with a bow.

Only when he turned to leave did Stéphane notice he did so with a prominent limp. He called the man back. "Your leg, Honoré. Did you injure yourself?"

"Ah," the man laughed it off, "it's nothing, my lord—"

"It clearly isn't nothing. You can hardly walk."

"Just a scrape, my lord, an accident. It need hardly concern you."

He should have known, however, that Stéphane's concern would not be assuaged by those words. And he would not let his man off without an explanation.

"Master Eduard took a small hunting party out the other day and asked me to accompany him." By now a common occurrence. Stéphane was well aware it was Honoré who was in fact responsible for many of his son's supposed kills, though the man was far too decent to ever admit it. "He had sighted a stag, a twelve-pointer, he claimed, in a thicket on the other side of the hill, and when we went to follow on foot—"

"You followed a stag on foot?"

"Eduard thought the horses would make too much noise," Honoré said as though it were of little consequence, "and that the terrain was too unstable to give chase. At the time, I thought it harmless to humor him. He'd been away for so long and was eager to impress the others. Our party got separated in the underbrush, and when I stepped on a dry branch, Eduard mistook me for the stag behind the foliage—"

"He shot at you."

The man hesitated, but nodded. "It was an instinctive reaction. I do believe he realized his mistake the second he released, but by then it was in God's hands. The arrow glanced my thigh, gave me a nasty gash that needed stitching up and ruined a pair of breeches, but by the grace of God, that's all that came of it."

Lucky Eduard was such a poor shot, was more like.

"Please don't mention it to the boy, my lord," Honoré entreated him. "I assured him I held nothing against him, the fault was mine for being careless, but he was terribly unsettled by the whole affair."

Stéphane assured the man he would not betray his confidence.

As for confronting Eduard, that was another matter.

He brought it up matter-of-factly after dinner, how he had noticed Honoré walking with difficulty. "I know the two of you went hunting together not so long ago, so I wonder if you might be able to shed some light on the matter. I would ask the man myself, but . . . Well, a gentleman can be sensitive about these things."

"I'm sure he's too proud to mention it," Eduard said. Far from unsettled, his eyes met his father's calmly across the space that separated them. "We were pursuing a boar through the thicket on the other side of the hill when Honoré's horse lost its footing and he was thrown from the saddle. You know how uneven the terrain is in that area."

"Certainly," said Stéphane, as though it were his first time hearing the story. "A man of his experience should have known to be more cautious. And did you eventually catch the animal that was to blame for this misadventure? I mean, after all that trouble . . ." And Eduard was never one to take returning empty-handed gracefully.

But he only sighed in mock-disappointment. "I'm sorry to say we did not, as we had to abandon our pursuit and turn back early. Honoré landed against a jagged branch when he fell, and cut his leg. Fortunately the wound was not very deep, and once we stemmed the flow of blood he insisted we press on; but I thought it best to call off the hunt. I know how much his friendship has meant to you these many years, Father, and I did not want to risk his condition worsening."

"How considerate of you." And how bold, Stéphane thought, watching his son.

Recognizing the look that came over Eduard's eyes when he raised his goblet. The urge to quickly wash his satisfaction down, one Stéphane was quite familiar with himself:

Eduard believed he had gotten away with it, and that no-one was the wiser.

What puzzled Stéphane was why he chose not to correct his son in that belief.

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><p><strong>Just a bit of trivia, <strong>but the peacock feather-patterned doublet is totally canon. And who doesn't love a little sartorial character development? ISWYDT, costume people. . . .


	4. License

**Historical disclaimer: **So, currency was sort of a mess around the time _Reign _takes place, but it seems a peasant's yearly wages at the time were around 100-150 francs. So the figure I've settled on hopefully represents about half a year's work to a member of the lower classes, but a huge insult to the middle-.

Probably should mention this chapter deals with some rough subjects, while I'm at it. Please keep in mind that just because a person writes a character or position, does not mean they endorse he or it.

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><p>IV.<p>

"Something must be done about your son, Stéphane."

When Henry had called him to court, it had been ostensibly to discuss other matters. Matters of land, taxes, feeding the kingdom. But he must have dreaded the conversation would turn to Eduard eventually, when they had opportunity to speak privately.

So there was no surprise to show on his face. Merely an uncomfortable smile, a long "Ahhh" of resignation.

"You know to what I refer already."

In truth, there were a number of possibilities to choose from. But Stéphane chose the one that had been brought to his attention most recently, by a particularly persistent advocate who had dogged his party all the way to court.

"I do," he told the king, "and I assure Your Grace I already have the situation well in hand. The girl's family will be well compensated for the embarrassment she suffered: eighty francs. To be deposited annually if the incident results in issue. The family's advocate agrees, it is a more generous offer than usually comes of these circumstances."

But Henry was laughing at it before he could even finish. "You will buy their cooperation, then? Eighty francs, for a tenant's daughter's virtue!"

"I hardly think the young woman in question had any virtue left to buy."

That muttered under his breath, but the king's look of righteous disapproval made him instantly regret it. "It was a known fact the young lady had other lovers," Stéphane said. "She may not have been renting her services outright, but you can bet she was well compensated for them."

"Yet the matter at hand is not one of insufficient payment!" Henry's voice echoed like a slap inside the closed room. "Allegations are that Eduard forced himself on the girl. And when she refused him, that he beat her and threatened her to the point she feared for her life and the lives of her family!"

"Now, my son did not beat that girl. That is nothing but a vindictive lie, intended to slander my family's reputation among the peasantry—"

"And the other charges look downright innocent by comparison, do they?"

Stéphane did not know which was worse, that it was his king accusing him of raising such a contemptible child, or his old friend. Tears of humiliation—and, yes, for one brief moment, fear—pricked at the back of his eyes, but he swallowed them down.

It took him a moment more to find his voice again. But when he did, he was careful to give no indication of his trouble.

"Let me be clear, _if_ the accusations against my son are true, I do not condone them. But surely, as a father yourself, you understand my position. If it were Francis being accused of such a crime—and I am not saying he ever would be," he was quick to add when Henry's nostrils flared, "would you not do everything in your power to protect him?"

"I would slap him in irons and let him spend a few nights in a cell," Henry growled, "until the boy learned his lesson." (Yes, a heated cell, Stéphane was sure, with ample chain and a warm supper.) "Unlike yourself, I have a duty to my countrymen, bestowed upon me by God, to ensure they receive their due justice. I cannot simply throw more money at a problem and hope it goes away."

"Then you and I aren't so different, Your Grace," Stéphane said, putting all the warmth of their many years of acquaintance behind every word. "I, too, care that justice is served—yes, I know it doesn't sound like I have much sympathy for the girl's family, but I do. God did not see fit to bless me with any daughters; but if He had, and such an atrocity befell one of them as what this young woman is claiming, I would be here crying for blood as loudly as any father."

"Then you will understand if I have Eduard arrested and made to stand trial."

Stéphane paled just thinking of the humiliation that would be heaped upon the Narcisse name if Eduard were dragged before a tribunal. The favor Stéphane would lose among his peers and his standing at court, no matter how amicably Henry still thought of him personally.

All of which failed to compare to the thought of Eduard calling out to him for help, and being able to do nothing.

But Stéphane let none of that break to the surface as he held Henry's gaze.

"Understand?" he said. "Yes. But I cannot agree."

"You would defy your king over this matter?"

"Your Grace," dare he still call the man Henry? "I have been nothing short of loyal to you during your reign, and to your father before you. You know this. You know that if you asked me to increase my yields tenfold or surrender my holdings to the crown, I would do so without dispute, for love of you. But if you ask me to give up my only son . . ."

He squared his shoulders. "I cannot. Your Grace, I cannot do it. Fine me, if it assuages your conscience, if it silences the other nobles. I care not for the coin. But trust me to handle Eduard myself."

And surely, Stéphane thought, loyalty had to be worth its weight in gold. Or, at very least, in grain.

"Discipline your son," Henry said after some thought. "Have him whipped, if that's what it takes. He may even thank you for it twenty years hence, if his cock is still attached to his body."

Stéphane dared not protest that he feared it was too late for such measures, and be accused of questioning the wisdom of the king. It was a generous ruling. What could one do, under the circumstances, but nod and say "Yes, Your Grace"?

And vow in his heart that he would never allow himself to bargain from such a weak position again.


	5. Loyalty

V.

The letter from Lord Voland stared up at him from the desk like a death sentence. But it was not the sum he requested that Stéphane took issue with. That was to be expected.

He understood now, that no amount would ever buy his safety.

"Master Eduard," came the voice of a servant in the hall, and Stéphane hurried to put the letter out of sight.

Not quickly enough. Eduard knew something was being hidden from him the moment he stepped into the office.

"Ah, Eduard, I was hoping to speak with you. There's some business in the south that requires my personal attention, so I regret I must leave you for a few months. In the meantime, I believe you are quite capable now of handling the estate—"

"Is this about that business with Voland?"

Stéphane's surprise must have shown on his face. Eduard chuckled. "I know all about it, Father. The separate ledgers, your deal with that cardinal, how Voland has been blackmailing you in exchange for his silence. I've known for some time."

"You've gone through my personal records." There was no other explanation.

But could Eduard not see there was a reason he was kept in the dark? Did he not understand Stéphane only did it to keep his son's hands clean? "You should have minded your own affairs, Eduard."

"And you should not have written it down, where it may be used as evidence against us! You think this only affects you, Father, but it's the Narcisse name that will suffer for it if word gets back to the crown, or the Vatican. Your legacy—_my_ inheritance. Not to mention everything you've worked so hard to secure, gone, if my engagement is called off due to this. I am involved whether you inform me or not. So I took the liberty of educating myself. Is that not how you raised me to be?"

Resignation settled over Stéphane like a pall. "You must feign ignorance, then. Even on pain of torture, you cannot reveal that you know anything."

"But it won't come to that, Father. I've given the matter plenty of thought, and I have a solution. One that may leave our family in an even stronger position than before this mess, if I play my hand right."

"Whatever it is you _think _you can accomplish," Stéphane said, "the risk is too great. I cannot send you into harm's way for a mistake I made."

He slammed his hand down on the desk, able to take the fury that had been building within him no longer. "Devil take that Voland! Take _that _lesson to heart, Eduard, that the men you _think _are your friends will be the first to stab you in the back!"

"Never fault a man for seizing an opportunity you presented him yourself. Is that not what you've always told me?"

And as Eduard stood there calm as a statue, his hands clasped behind his back, while Stéphane could not keep himself still, he realized that was a lesson long ago learned. Eduard may have been a stubborn lad, but he was also a quick study. And he was, above all, his father's son.

"You forget I am still on good terms with the lord's son," he said, careful to keep his voice low. "I know, for instance, that Voland is taking his family to court for the king's tournament. No doubt he will try to get an audience once there. But it will take time. The king will surely be occupied with his gloating over Calais, and his thoughts will be turning toward England. In any event, he will have far more pressing concerns than the Vatican's missing taxes. While Henry is thus distracted, I will keep my eye on Voland for you, and send back word about his intentions. By the time he can try to make his move, I will have a plan in place to block him."

"What do you have in mind?"

"It's better that you don't know all the details. Plausible deniability and whatnot. Suffice to say, King Henry owes you a great debt for your generosity during his time of need, and as I doubt at the moment he has the coin to repay you, he may think a judgment in your favor to be a more than fair settlement. All the more so if said generosity were to suddenly dry up."

Not a bad start. And flight, while a simple solution in the short term, was no guarantee of survival.

Still, the boy needed to be warned: "You must realize this is not a game you can hope to win if you cannot win absolutely. If you think it a small thing to bribe a king—"

"I think no such thing. But I know he holds you in great regard, and I know what we stand to lose if I do not try. All I ask is that you trust me. And for God's sake, burn that ledger.

"I will send you a signal when it is safe to return to court," Eduard said with a smile that for one moment, despite the danger and the scruff of beard, made him look a boy again. "A gold sash, flying from the highest tower. It will be my white sail to you, Father."

And you will make an Aegeus of me, Stéphane thought with a chill of premonition. He knew how that story ended, having told Eduard it himself.

But he could not allow himself to dwell on the worst. If Eduard failed, it could mean both their heads.

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><p><strong>Notes: <strong>So, names again. I've seen it spelled "Verland" and "Voland" on the interwebs, as well as some others that seemed way off the mark, and, in absence of DVD subtitles, vacillated before settling on the latter spelling. In any event, he's the man referenced in episodes 2.01 and 2.02 whom Eduard is trying to get plague given to.


	6. Liberty

VI.

"I understand that you're suffering, Narcisse, I do, but let us be realistic. While we can agree that Mary was overzealous in her meting out of justice, we both know Eduard would have had to pay for his actions, criminal as they were, one way or another. What kind of message would it send if he were allowed to get off with but a slap on the wrist after poisoning an entire household? Women and children, no less. . . ."

But word of those deaths means nothing to him. No more than their lives ever did. The new spring foliage that hangs above his head mocks him, the hard liquor in his hand and on his tongue doing nothing to return the clarity he has lost.

Or is clarity the problem? For he has not been able to cease running through the ways things might have turned out differently for days, since learning of Eduard's death.

Or has it been weeks? He no longer knows, and it no longer seems to matter. So many years, erased in an instant. What does time matter anymore when the purpose of his life has been ripped away?

"To be perfectly honest, it's amazing he made it to the age he did. Carrying on like that, I would be surprised if he didn't have his share of rivals, waiting in the wings to do to him what he did to Lord Voland. . . ."

But Catherine's less than subtle accusations fall on deaf ears. He's locked his guilt all up inside an iron box inside himself. The weight of it bears on him every second, but he dare not look inside, examine its contents more carefully. Surely she must understand that. That if he let it sink in for a moment, truly sink in, that he had had it in his power to prevent this, and squandered every opportunity, it would kill him.

"When you look at it in that light, one could almost say it was a kindness, what happened to him—"

"A _kindness?_"

She stops her prattle at the tone of his voice, the bob in her throat barely perceptible, but there. She knows she has overstepped a line.

"You did not see his face." The memory of it haunts him still, at every moment, so much so that he doesn't know how he manages to speak. He can only conclude truth must have a way of making itself heard. "Even in death, the terror was frozen in his eyes."

_And I could do nothing to protect him—nothing to save him, when he needed me the most. I did not even know. . . ._

No. He must not blame himself for this. He did not put Eduard in shackles, did not turn a deaf ear to his cries for mercy. "Two weeks—_two_ _weeks _he was kept locked in that hell, without even water to soothe his fever, let alone the barest of human sympathies. He died in agony, and despair—treated worse than even an animal. And you have the _gall _to speak to me of _kindness—"_

He notes the spasm of her arm, how instinct almost makes her reach out to him; but she overcomes it, and keeps her hand in her lap, while his clenches white around his cup.

"I am only trying to help," Catherine says, and at last she does him the courtesy of sounding genuinely remorseful. "To put things in perspective. Mary doesn't understand your agony. How can she? She isn't a mother. But I am. And I _do_ understand what you're going through, Narcisse. I am no stranger to the loss of a child. It is a condition I would wish on no-one."

_Then what made you think you had the right to take him from me? _he longs to shout back—to shake into her and everyone else in this God-forsaken place until each soul is brought as low as he. _He was _mine, _my_ _son, my _boy_!_

But words are only words, and his will free him from this torment no sooner or better than hers. Though he may throw them against the walls of his prison as hard as he likes, they will not extricate him from his own hell.

"I hear it said that in the New World, there are a people who cut the hearts from living victims to appease their savage gods."

He meets her eyes and sees her flinch. But from his words? He thinks not.

"Imagine how it must feel," he says, "to be one of those sacrifices. To be laid on that altar, feel your own heart ripped, still beating, from your body. To see it taken away, out of your reach, knowing that you can do nothing, _nothing_ to get it back—"

"Am I to take that as a threat?"

And he almost laughs that she could misinterpret his meaning so greatly. She, who professes to know what it is to lose a child. The empty space where he knows his heart, somehow, though he cannot feel it, still beats, resonates with the urge. But to laugh? Or to scream, until his throat is raw and his ribs ache? If he did not already know how little it would do to fill the void inside himself.

"It's not a threat," he says through teeth clenched against the pain, against the outrage. "Merely an observation you and your surviving children would do well to take to heart. That there is none so dangerous as a man who has nothing left to lose."


End file.
